The 49ers’ Aldon Smith insisted Tuesday that his shoulder was not an issue even through he did not have a sack in the final six games, including in the Super Bowl loss to Baltimore.

“I don’t think my shoulder was a problem at all,” said Smith, who had 19.5 sacks in the team’s first 13 games.

Smith said he feels “all right” and that he just needs “rest” in the offseason.

Asked about the 49ers’ lack of a pass rush late in the season, Smith added, “We didn’t get to the quarterback as much as we should have. But they were blocking us a lot of different ways. The ball was coming out a lot faster.”

Darren Sabedra is a sports reporter and the high school sports editor, overseeing prep coverage throughout the Bay Area. He's been with the Bay Area News Group since the early 1990s and has covered many sports beats, including Stanford football and basketball, pro baseball and the NFL. He also has worked on the sports copy desk.

Researchers said Sunday the mass die-off occurred because unusually large amounts of sea ice forced penguin parents to travel farther in search of food for their young. By the time they returned, only two out of thousands of chicks had survived.